You will find something more in woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from masters.
Saint Bernard
My back yard in summer
Autumn
My pond in winter
I haven’t written in here for a few days. Making excuses for not writing in a personal journal just seem like talking to myself, in a bad way.
I had an interesting conversation with someone I met online. Someone who loves trees. So I thought I would write about some of mine.
The first one is the red willow at the front of my house. I transplanted that years ago, and now it shades my front porch. Here they are considered a junk tree or bush, more nuisance than anything else. For me, it’s a place that my chicadees sit and wait for the sunflower seeds I feed them. I feed them more in winter than summer.
I consider that almost a duty to make sure that they have food. Our relationship is beneficial to both. I provide them with seed they give me song and company in exchange.
Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them.
The next tree is the willow at the end of my driveway. I didn’t really plant that, but left it alone, so it would grow.
A few years ago, I had a trench dug to help drain away extra water from a swampy area. As a result of that red willows and poplar sprouted up along the trench. The trench is front of where I store firewood for winter. I am a little concerned that I may not be able to find any this winter, lumber prices are sky high due to Covid and wildfires. I have enough wood to last a skinny month, I have at least 8 months of winter to get through. Will I cut my own trees to supply me ? No, except the dead ones.
The last tree is my favourite, a black poplar, the toughest tree to kill on the property. It survived chainsaw-wielding power company terrorists trying to punish me for daring to go off-grid. The march of billions of tent caterpillars, that decimated miles long swaths through the forests. They don’t like the taste of black poplar. But everything else was stripped bare. highways were turned brown by vehicles running over miles of them.
That tree now has babies and is doing well.
The future trees have yet to be planted, I hoped to plant a tall hedge of caragana at the front of my place.
A birch I saved from being thrown out at a tree nursery they told me it was dead. I have a few others around the property
The best part about having trees is the local wildlife feels safe here deer, moose, foxes, coyotes and wolves. Some of those are cat eaters. I try to discourage those. The rest are welcome.
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